I had an old friend, we’ll call her Ebony, come to visit. Ebony and I were dear friends in college and beyond, but we had drifted apart for 2-3 years before, out of the blue, she called to arrange a visit. I was so happy to see my friend when she arrived and even happier to see that she was happy and thriving in a way I had never seen before.

Ebony, though an amazing person and great friend, had her struggles. She struggled with anxiety and depression, drug use, health issues, school, relationships and jobs. But suddenly (from my perspective) the woman that appeared at my door was healthy, confident, productive and stable. I waited for a perfect moment to ask .. what the hell happened to the Ebony I knew?

Ebony recounted how, for years she was a ball of stress because she never graduated from college. You see, after 2 years as my classmate she had to drop out from stress related health problems. A few years later she returned to school, only to have to drop out again, this time from drug use. Over and over, for more than 15 years, my friend repeated the same cycle — stress at being a failure for not graduating forced her to re-enroll, stress from school made her sick, sickness destroyed her life in so many other ways. Still, in this time, she had managed to begin at a low level job and forge ahead until she had a really good, enjoyable, well paying career.

One day, before another re-enroll, she realized her problem — she defined her success as being a person who graduated from college, she, by her own definition was a failure. But, evidence in her own life forced her to challenge this view, after all, college made her a wreck every time, but  she had found professional success in another way. Suddenly, she was done, done with defining her success in one fixed way. Done trying to go back to school and sending herself through more cycles of suffering. Done calling herself a failure based on one thing while ignoring all the other success she had. Done being the Ebony I had always known.

As I sat attentively listening to my friend’s story, my mind was doing jumps for joy — the Dharma works! It friggin works! If it can work for Ebony, for a whole adult life of brokenness, there is hope for me too. Of course, my friend, who is not a Buddhist practitioner, wouldn’t put it in these terms, but her story was basically:

Deep wrong view (permanent thought about graduating =  success) propelled her into years of actions (re-enrolling) that hurt her. Collecting evidence (failure in school and success in other ways)allowed her to change her view. With her wrong view eliminated she was free of her cycle, free to do other things.

And all Alana really wants is to be free. Seeing Ebony, someone I knew so well, changed in such a dramatic way really impacted me. It was so simple, so clear, better than any outline or roadmap to practice I could have come-up with. This example, of how the dharma works, logically, naturally, as a basic feature of this world, really hit home. It gave me hope that Dharma is  not some impenetrable mystery outside the grasp of ordinary folks (after all my friend is ordinary like me, she isn’t even a Buddhist). The tools and techniques we all use to problem solve our way through our daily lives (turned towards the path) are all we really need. That, and once in awhile, a little inspiration from a friend.